MOT means rust fixing

I crawled under the pickup just to check a measurement and thought that the left side inner sill looked a little bit tired. I took a big screw driver and knocked it with the tip and *crack* straight through! Hmm... I hate rust. Need to do the MOT so I decided to fix it the easy way, and never-get-a-problem-with-sills-again way, that means I replaced the sill by double welded 2 mm 50x50 square tubes and 1 mm galvanized sheet.

Of course, when you start cutting there will be more. I ended up replacing pieces of the floor, a part of the torpedo wall, the outer sills, a piece of the wheel house and the vertical beam in front of the rear wheel. I actually ended up booking a new date for the MOT. I have to do an ugly fix for the hatch as well, I had to cut it open as the lock was totally rusted. I'm going to do some glass/carbon fibre parts for the pickup and new hatches are first in the list, so I'm not going to put any energy on these ugly bastards.

I also found out that the bed floor is damaged and that's probably why it has an extra layer of metal sheet on top. Some of the bed outriggers needs to be replaced as well. So the new plan is as following:

As soon we are in the new workshop, I'll cut the bed of totally.

Remove the engine and gearbox.

Replace everything that needs to be fixed, I'll get the material from a company nearby.

Rust protect everything and repaint.

New engine/gearbox in.

Totally new bed floor made out of galvanized sheets.

Burn out!

Oooh, I can't wait to have my workshop at home!!!

Very last mod on Peter's bus

I've done it before. Will do it again - the LED mod! :)

Exhaust mod

I had to test my resonance theory, my idea was that the noise came from a too short exhaust pipe and a worn out muffler. The muffler was also a "pyramid" and therefore was working as a noice enhancer instead now when all the wool was gone. So I bought a new "flow through" muffler to get a longer exhaust. Of course, it was too long and I had to cut it down and custom build the end pipe. I think that even if this one also is blown, the resonance will be kept away because the flow through design.

Result: Noise improved! :)

Now I can do some hard acceleration before there's any noise and when high speed cruising the noise is totally gone.

First test run

First run. It runs very smooth and accelerates really nice. There's a bit of resonance around 3000 RPM when flooring the pedal, which I believe is because the exhaust pipe is too short until the first dampener. On top of that, the dampener is more or less empty...
I'll make a test tonight I think. I'll replace the dampener with a pipe instead, I think that will lower the frequency for the resonance, but it might also raise the average noise. We'll see.

But in general, it runs really really nice! :)

New frame

I made a new frame around the engine this weekend. The old one was really tacky and was vibrating itself. Now I made one which is secured with deep screws and construction glue. I added a lot of isolation inside the frame and then a sheet of MDF on top. This one is sturdy, I tell you. :)

new exhaust - double noise reduction

Went to the spare parts place yesterday with my little son Valter (yep, he has VW as initials. His little brother as well...), he had a full time adventure and I was mostly busy keeping that adventure not-being-an-expensive-one-of-a-kind... That little piece of human being got energy for sure.

Anyway, we bought an extra muffler. I was 100 % sure it with kill a lot of the low end sound, We bought an end silencer from a Volvo 740 to keep everything simple. The existing big can is now pretty empty on steel wool, but it's too close to the down pipe so the gases are probably killing it, I simply left it as is. So tonight I turned the existing left-side exhaust towards the right side, welded a new bend and with an extension crossing the engine I connected the new silencer on the right side. The pipe is pretty close to the engine but I think it will not be hot there, the gases should be cooled down already. The setup turned out very nice. 

If there's a noise reduction?

Well, let me rephrase that: Does the bear shit in the woods?! It's now much much better than I ever could expect!

Now, I actually only have to rebuild the wooden frame on top of the compartment. On wednesday Peter is picking the bus up..:)

New ignition, wow!

I ordered a kit from Hotspark (http://www.hot-spark.eu/webshop/) for Peter's bus and replaced the old pieces tonight, and wow what a difference!

Now the engine starts super easy and the idle is smooth as never before. If you ever want to make an old engine better, don't hesitate to buy one of these kits.

I also covered the "box" and the compartment top cover with bitumen plates tonight. They are thick tarmac like plates with a tape side. The material itself is super dense and kills vibrations very good. Tomorrow I'll make the new surrounding. I'll fill it up with isolating material as well hoping for a quite bus. 

I do know that a second muffler will change the sound as well. Must to that I think.

Cable fire

When I did the first test runs with the engine, a cable suddenly started burning. Well, it was not just a cable, it was the alternator cable! I found a shortage point when I removed the old engine and I did fix that. But I found out the hard way that the cable was in such a poor condition it was just luck it didn't catch fire when Peter drove the bus to me. I dropped a bucket with coolant in the compartment and I tell you I have never been removing a battery that fast...

Now the cable is just a piece of melted copper, so I made a new one with all connections to other electric parts as well. I'm not a fan of those squeeze couplings, they tend to "unsqueeze" so I solder cables. These are really thick, they are not super easy to solder. Anything goes with fire though. :)

Running!

First start in 10 years. The engine has been stored in a barn since year 2000. Cranked it first without spark plugs to build up oil pressure. Then plugged them in and tadaa!
Did a longer run later on with idle and higher RPM's. The engine works perfect even though it hasn't been in use for ten years.

Night working

Had a couple of days of to work with Peter's bus and didn't reach the goal to have it running friday night. It's all because a friend of mine and his car. We decided to fix his car as well and a "minor thing" ended up with 9 hours anger management. I tend to hate that brand from now on. And no, it is not a VW...

Anyway, I installed the new engine during sunday afternoon and the gearbox was leaning like crazy. Something was wrong, I couldn't at the moment figure out what the problem was but yesterday I got a struck of lightning. The old Volvo engine series B18/B20 and the predecessor B19/21/23/230 share the same bolt pattern except that the newer family is rotated 15 degrees. The adapter plate was of course made for both engine families! So, I dropped the engine once again last night, removed the gearbox bolts and rotated it anti-clockwise and tadaa - new holes for the bolts appeared!
Bolted it together again and new lift into in the compartment was an easy task. I do this procedure in less than 40 minutes on my own with the Volvo engine. With a VW engine it's even quicker.

One problem is the length of the Volvo block. It actually touches the rear beam as is and with the rear untouched the lift procedure is sort of a zig-zag movement. Up with the engine nose very high, lift the gearbox, down with the nose, bolt the gearbox, up with the engine again and bolt the engine support. I did a cut out in the rear beam, removed about 1½ centimeter and that made a uge difference when the engine was lifted. Still tight like crazy on the way up, but a lot better when it's in place. Now a belt change will be much much easier.

New oil and filter, new cam belt and tensioner, new gearbox oil and regreased CV joints. Now it's time for coolant pipes and all cables and then a start!
I'll go for a gear shaft service as the shift stick is super sloppy, and a new exhaust system to get the noise reduced is planned. I'll remake the rear cover as well with dampening plates and isolation added. Might have a look at the starter motor too, it's pretty tired.

More to come...